The Other Side with Tammy Burger

​Seven years ago Tammy Burger needed a change.

A certified nurse-midwife at UHS Wilson Medical Center for 15 years, Burger was struggling with healthcare policies that kept her from spending as much time with her patients as she wanted to.

“Quite frankly,” she says, “I was getting a little burned out.”

That’s when Burger made two life-altering decisions. First, she left practice and accepted a full-time position as a clinical instructor at the Decker School of Nursing (she had been serving as an adjunct instructor for one semester). Second, she began making soap.

“I’ve always loved doing anything with my hands. I sew, I quilt, I knit, but I had never made soap,” she says. “But, I felt like I needed to do something I had never done before because I felt so burned out. I needed to learn a new skill.”

After watching YouTube tutorials and scouring how-to sites, Burger began acquiring soap-making skills. Not long after, she was producing bars of soap in fragrances such as black vanilla raspberry, lemongrass, sandalwood and lavender.

“One thing led to another and pretty soon friends wanted to buy my soaps,” Burger says. “And then, other people wanted to buy them, too.”

As demand for her soap increased, Burger opened a business, Simplify, and grew her product line, all while continuing as an instructor in Decker’s family and adult-gerontological nurse practitioner programs.

Today, Burger offers a signature line of soap bars, plus seasonal soaps created for summer, fall and Christmas. She also offers a wide range of additional products, including lotions, sugar scrubs, foot scrubs, candles, laundry detergent, stain sticks, shampoo bars, conditioner bars and more. Burger sells her products through an Etsy shop (SimplifyProducts), as well as in gift shops in nearby Owego and Greene, N.Y.

In response to the coronavirus pandemic, Burger added hand sanitizer and face masks to her product line, and didn’t produce a summer 2020 seasonal array of soap bars.

Business has been slow, but Burger is optimistic based on positive customer feedback.

“People say my soaps last a long time and they love my fragrances,” she says. “But, most of the time they’re surprised their skin doesn’t feel dry like it does with commercial soaps.”

One aspect of Simplify that sets Burger apart is her commitment to creating products that are environmentally friendly. For example, she produces soap, shampoo and conditioner bars that don’t use bottles and are instead wrapped in a 100% biodegradable film. For products that do require the use of bottles or jars, Burger uses only those created from polyethylene terephthalate (polyester), which is completely recyclable and the most recycled plastic in the U.S. and worldwide. She also makes candles using soy and coconut oils to eliminate paraffin wax emissions, a common air pollutant.

“I am concerned about the environment,” Burger says, “so it has been my goal to produce a quality product, but to keep it environmentally sound.”